Kia Stonic Tuning

"Thanks for reading my Kia Stonic tuning guide."

We review and look at Kias urban crossover the Stonic and see what tuning mods work best and provide tips on the best modifications.

The Stonic is a good project car to try. We see loads of people wasting money on their Stonic doing the wrong mods and then having to start over. Follow our pointers to avoid wasting your money

Our aim in Stonic engine tuning should be to increase peak power and Torque at the top end.

Smaller engines do not provide much of a return in terms of power so start with a bigger engine. Engine swaps are a good option if you have a small engine size.

Power mods.

Typically these modified mods are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you start.

Getting the correct grade of motorsport upgrades for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 (competition) mods just won't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

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Stages of Tune

Stage 1 mods: Lighter flywheel, Remap, Alloy wheels, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Panel air filter, Sports exhaust.

Stage 2 mods: fuel pump upgrades, Fast road cam, Power/Sport clutch, Ported and polished head, high flow fuel injector.

Stage 3 mods: Competition cam, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Sports gearbox, Engine balancing.

You should keep as much low end power as you can and aim to achieve a long power band rather than a narrow top end power hike.

The whole point of our advice is to give a limited introduction of modding modifications and point you in the right direction, our forum is best place to go if you need more detailed advice and tips on your modified car project, the best sport modifications and all aspects of modding cars.

Fast road cams offer one of the biggest bhp gains for your money as far as a single uprated upgrades goes on a NASP engine.

It maximises the intake and exhaust durations and increases the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a performance chip. We'd also caution you not to go with a competition cam as this upsets the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

Don't forget to look at the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty.

If you find you get flat spots and surges after your modifications you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Increasing the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned Stonics uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Contrary to popular belief there is often very little power gain achieved by fitting an induction kit, they only work well and are recommended after you raise the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

Maximum power gains come from a full induction kit with a cold air feed on heavily tuned engines, this can be sited within an air box but a performance panel filter should suffice for most applications. TorqueCars suggest you use a panel air filter as these are easy to clean and maintain and generally perform better than paper ones.

Do not go with the largest exhaust you can get this will slow up the exhaust flow rate - the best for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

Head porting and polishing the head will allow you to maximise your air/fuel charge. Leave this to a professional though with a proper flow bench and machine tools A good multi plate fast road performance clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or think that a standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods we would do for your Stonic are a remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.

Turbo engines are just crying out to be remapped. You will see impressive power gains on most modern turbocharged cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective and impressive modifications for your money.

We've also seen some tuners playing with twincharging applications and making some impressively high power figures.

Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give large power gains. Superchargers are often easier to add than a turbo. It is harder to map a turbo as the boost increases exponentially with rpm.

The nice proportional boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them simpler to map. Alternatively you could fit water injection to control knock.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many Stonic owners uprate the handling of their cars with coilover suspension kits as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

If you set the toe out to 1-1.7 degrees on the front, and add a small amount of negative camber then cornering will often be enhanced.

We would go to a maximum drop of 29mm - 36 mm on most models. You risk handling compromises if you go lower than this.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are generally less heavy than the steel ones. Pay attention to your choice of tyres (tyres) for your car, a good soft compound tyre can really enhance your cars handling. It is worth noting that although they can look cool on the Stonic big alloys will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this to the change in your effective final drive ratio.

Although some people have with bigger wheels without issues we would restrict ourselves to a 18 inch rim size as the maximum.

There is a more updated version of this Kia Stonic Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Stonic options in more detail with our Stonic owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Kia tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

We need your help improving this article, so please send us your feedback in the comments box below and pass on any tips, points or facts we have wrong or have not covered.

We really do love seeing our visitors car projects and which mods work best for them, this site is very much a community effort, and we remind our visitors of our non profit non commercial approach to running this site.

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This article is flagged for an update, so please pass on specific tips below that I can include. All articles, and content was written by me, Waynne Smith TorqueCars founder. Some outlines are just too general so I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Kia. You can leave a response below or join our forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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